As veggie stores fade, it's time to plant anew

Sunday

Apr 15, 2012 at 12:01 AMApr 15, 2012 at 10:19 AM

Awhile back, I was thinking about how much more pleasant the long winter was because of the food we could take out of our freezer for evening meals. The items were made from the produce we had grown in last summer's vegetable garden.

Awhile back, I was thinking about how much more pleasant the long winter was because of the food we could take out of our freezer for evening meals.

The items were made from the produce we had grown in last summerís vegetable garden. They included cabbage rolls and pureed tomatoes that we made into chili. How special a pot of chili can be on a winter evening!

Just the other day, we took the last container of stuffed green peppers out of the freezer. Whenever we have stuffed peppers, we also have corn that we cut off the cob and froze last summer. I donít grow sweet corn because I donít have enough room in my garden. We buy it at produce stands, and it still tastes fresh in the winter.

We still have some of the onions I grew last summer, stored in the basement. We put them in soups and stews, and just the other night, we used some in pork fried rice.

Now itís time to plant more vegetables in the garden.

We do have a nice bunch of rhubarb in the yard, but my wife bought the rhubarb for the pie she baked for Easter because we didnít think ours was quite mature enough to cut. It will be in a week or so, though, and then more rhubarb pies will be forthcoming.

We might even freeze one or two for the winter.

I am already harvesting some things from the backyard such as the parsley we cut up in some chicken pot pies the other night. We are also picking mint for our iced tea and cutting chives to put in cottage cheese. We have sage ready to use on a pork roast.

I have hauled in 18 bags of composted cow manure, spread it over my 16-by-25-foot vegetable garden and tilled it into the soil.

Then I planted all my onion sets ó five rows of them ó and am about to plant the cabbages I purchased and some Swiss chard seeds. I like Swiss chard better than spinach because spinach is done when the weather turns hot, but Swiss chard lasts the whole growing season. I do love greens with a bit of vinegar on them.

The older I get, the harder it is to plant a vegetable garden; but I canít imagine not having all those fruits of my labor. Sure, you can buy all those vegetables at a store, but it wouldnít be the same as growing them. Besides, I have never had a store-bought tomato that tasted as good as a homegrown one.

Picking that first red tomato of the season is like hitting a grand-slam home run in a baseball game.